Customer Reviews

H&R Block TaxCut 2008 Premium Federal + State + e-file [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(96)
4 star:		(94)
3 star:		(26)
2 star:		(43)
1 star:		(63)

 

 

I switched from TurboTax to TaxCut this year primarily due to Intuit's new pricing structure where they both raised the base price quite a bit and then they charge $9.95 for each additional return you want to prepare beyond the first one. Given those changes, it was time to try something else.

So far I am very pleased with TaxCut. It imported my TurboTax data from last year without any problems at all. It also will import data from Quicken, though I don't use that option.

It is a different interface and takes a little getting used to, but then TurboTax's interface changes every year also so with either product one is going to have to adjust to some new interface quirks.

Of course, it is pretty early to be running software, since the IRS is still finalizing things for 2008, and such things as the Alternative Minimum Tax haven't been nailed down, but TaxCut still did a very good job helping me see where I was going to come out on my taxes for 2008. And that includes my schedule C for a consulting business. Obviously, there will be a bunch of updates in a few weeks, but that is to be expected from any Tax Software at this stage.

TaxCut also did a nice job helping me plan for 2009 taxes as well. I had already done some planning using a Numbers Spreadsheet on the Macintosh and so I could tell whether TaxCut was pretty accurate. It was.

Overall, for those who are thinking about switching to TaxCut this year from TurboTax, my take is that I found it easy to do.

UPDATE 1/24/09:

I am still very satisfied with this product. So far I've entered all my data, and it's been pretty painless, both for Fed & State taxes.

I have to qualify this by saying that my taxes are pretty simple this year, with no AMT, no sch C, no sch K, etc. So I'm not really running into some areas that are often not handled well in tax software.

One thing I liked better than turbo tax was the simpler handling of tax-exempt income, splitting the in-state vs. out-of-state portions. Also, similarly, the handling of US Treasury interest (tax-exempt for state tax). Turbo Tax makes you enter separate 1099s for each part, instead of just capturing the information within one form dialog.

On the other side, I have some additional critiques:
(1) no ability to import/download W2 & 1099 data (not that I found, anyway)
(2) form 1116 has to be filled out manually, even if it's pretty straightforward -- they could have and should have provided an interview for this
(3) no way provided to simply delete a line in a form (minor point, turbo tax has this, and I find it very useful) -- you can of course delete the data in the line

INITIAL REPORT:

Obviously, it's a bit too early to provide a thorough review of the program, because it's essentially incomplete (as is TurboTax): many tax forms are still not available in their final form. There will be a Dec 11 update, and I expect several others over the next couple of months. (I've learned from past experience not to submit final returns until late March, since the bug fixes and form corrections are often not final until then. This is true for either TurboTax or TaxCut.)

However, here's my current take: this is a fine program, and certainly more than adequate for the necessary help preparing a tax return. I've used TaxCut in the past, but have used TurboTax for the past few years. I decided to use TaxCut this year because of the price difference, and because the new licensing policy for TT is annoying. So far I'm finding it easy to use, and trouble-free in importing data from the previous year TurboTax file and current year TXF files.

One minor weakness compared to TurboTax: I remember that in the 07 TT you could remove a specific set of imported data; I haven't found anything like that in this program. Not a biggie for me, since I always save "checkpoints" in separate files so I can revert to a previous version if I need to, but it's the kind of little thing that makes TT a bit better in my opinion. Just not sufficiently better that I will pay anything Intuit wants to charge (just a matter of principle for me).

Some general comments, based on experience over many years of doing my own (often very complicated) returns: Neither program is perfect by any means. For many complicated situations you have to do your own calculations externally (I use Excel), or enter data manually. Be aware that dealing with AMT, AMT credits, and stuff like that remains mind-bendingly difficult, just not as nightmarish as doing them without a program to help. And you should always sanity check your results, because odd calculation bugs can persist for a long time. (I found a very stupid, but hard to find, calculation bug in TurboTax a few years ago, having to do with AMT.)

I will post an update in a few weeks when I've had the chance to make more progress with my return. Will be able to review the state program as well at that point, perhaps.

I switched to Taxcut this year after the deceitful pricing for Intuit's TurboTax. I had used TurboTax since 1997, so I was a bit nervous about making the switch, especially after having tried Taxcut in 2004 and finding its import of TurboTax files to be poor. But Intuit's scammy behavior was too offensive for me to remain a customer.

The good news is that Taxcut works just fine, importing my TurboTax files and providing a clean, easy interview interface (TurboTax's has gotten too complex, so I switched to using the forms mode instead a couple years back). The forms are fine, too, though I do wish you could have the forms and interview running in parallel in Taxcut as you can in TurboTax -- that's helpful during final review. (Taxcut can display both, but you have to switch to forms-only mode to add or change entries in the form.) I also wish I could increase the forms' type size, but TurboTax can't do that either.

Anyhow, the bottom line is that Taxcut does the job well, so if you're a long-time TurboTax user like me, don't bne afraid to switch.

I also switched to Taxcut this year after many years of preparing my return with Turbotax. To me, it's essentially the same. Taxcut imported last year's turbotax data which helps by pre-filling in a lot of forms. You go through a very similar interview process. You can go to the actual forms and tweak the numbers.

Some things which are different:
1. taxcut auto saves every few minutes.. so if you are experimenting, you ought to make a copy first and mess with that, otherwise you might find the changes have been written to disk without explicitly saving them.
2. Schedule C does not allow joint spouse ownership as is available in turbotax. Turbotax would autmatically split all the income, expenses, taxes for SE, etc into two sets for you. Tax cut says you have to do this by yourself manually. (which defeats the purpose of using software)
3. If you go to the actual form for Schedule C and double click in the box to toggle Y/N for passive activity, the program consistently crashes.. thank goodness for that frequent auto-save. I don't know where to report this to H&R block since their customer service doesn't have an email address. You can change the value of this box through the interview, however.
4. You can only add up to 6 items per field (via the itemized list) where as in turbotax I never encountered a limit.

In conclusion, despite some minor problems which I hope will be fixed in an update, Taxcut seems to be an adequate replacement for turbotax if you want to make a statement to protest Intuit and yet still get your taxes done.

I bought TaxCut because at the time TurboTax had a stupid policy of charging an extra $10 for each printed tax return. They later reversed this, but I had already started preparing a year-end planning pro forma return using TaxCut. Now that I've used the product, it would have been better to stick with TurboTax even if I had to pay extra to print a planning return. (And of course, now TurboTax has dropped that stupid charge, so it's no longer a problem.)

TaxCut advantages: (1) it's a little cheaper, and (2) it has some limited audit protection service built in. While I don't think it's as good as the extra-cost ($35) audit offering available for TurboTax, but for a relatively simple return it may save you from buying that kind of insurance. That's it. In every other way TurboTax is better.

Here are just some of the TaxCut deficiencies: (1) Interview is MUCH less thorough. I found numerous areas where TurboTax takes you through detail with explanations while TaxCut just has you fill in a number without a lot of explanation. (2) One-click relevent help for each entry -- TaxCut often sends you to a generic help page that's not relevent, while TurboTax usually gives you immediate specific details about that particular line. The TaxCut online help is poor. (3) One-click access to itemized lists. Both products let you enter a mini-spreadsheet to sum totals for any entry. But when you go to re-open a list, TurboTax takes you right to the list, while TaxCut just gives you a menu of all the lists in your return, with no hint of which is which other than Form and Line Number. If you have a form open you can know the form and line number, but if you're in the middle of an interview screen you need to have it all memorized, or else open the lists by trial and error. (4) Import from Quicken had a number of errors which needed manual correction.

I could go on with user interface and feature deficiences, but I'll close with problems when installing updates. I went through a lot of trouble when the product said it needed to update itself, which it proceeded to do, except the update didn't actually happen so it kept saying it still needed an update. TaxCut support responded promptly via online chat, but gave me bad advice involving dubious system startup changes. I actually found the solution in another one of these Amazon reviews when I did Google searches to find people who might have answers. This burned off a number of hours I could have spent doing something else!

I do think TaxCut is adequate for relatively simple returns but I'm giving it a low 2-star rating because the alternative is quite a bit better and the prices aren't much different.

PS when comparing prices, don't forget that the cost to do STATE efile is big. (TurboTax also dings you for state efile.) Remember that to gain the benefit of TaxCut's bundled audit assistance for your state return, you must efile.

PPS I also reviewed TurboTax 2008 when users were rebelling against the stupid pay-for-print policy. At the time I gave them one star, but now that the policy has changed I would raise my rating, except Amazon has no way to change a rating once published. If you happen to see both reviews, TurboTax is the better product.

I just chatted with a TaxCut rep to get to the bottom of the "no state e-file" business for Premium Fed + State + e-file. He said they charge $29.95 per state e-file. I said "wow!". I've not bought yet so I'll be looking at other options. If I end up back here then I'll surely be sending my state in the mail!

(Seems like if there's going to be a 75% fee after purchase that an honorable company might mention that. It was NOWHERE in their on-online descriptions, FAQs, etc.)

TaxCut offers individuals a powerful option for preparing an income tax return that is relatively easy to use. TaxCut assumes that you know little or nothing about income tax law. The software will ask a number of questions and will prompt you for information based on your answers. It will help tremendously if you gather as many of your tax documents as possible before starting. This software is significantly cheaper than paying a service to prepare it and much easier than doing in manually.

The e-file option has been around for some years and is a great way to get your refunds faster. But if you owe money, there's not as much of an advantage. Still, you get five free electronic filing so you might as well use one. In the unlikely event that you plan to prepare more than five returns, make sure you use the e-file for the ones due a refund and file the ones with money due manually. The program will print all the forms you need so it's easy to do and it will save you the cost of the fees for the additional e-files.

The one negative for this program is that the publisher used to offer free e-filing for the state return as well as federal but has dropped that for the 2008 edition. With a charge weighing in a whopping $19.95 for e-filing each state return, this is not a trivial fee. I would recommend filing state returns manually unless you will receive a refund large enough to make getting the check a week or so faster worth that extra money.

Please note that this version covers both Federal and State returns. Most people will need both, but if you live in a state with no income tax then you'll want to look at H&R Block TaxCut 2008 Premium Federal + e-file for considerably less money.

If you don't itemize your deductions and have a very simple return, you might be better off preparing the forms manually on your own. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you have a return with major league complications, you should probably go to a good CPA. For everyone else, this is really a no-brainer. It's inexpensive, easy to use, and accurate. I've been using TaxCut for quite a few years and would not even consider giving it up.

Last year's TaxCut 2007 Premium Federal + State + e-file software INCLUDED BOTH e-filing for the Federal return AND e-filing for 1-State return.

This year, the 2008 version DOES NOT INCLUDE FREE e-filing for the state return!

Last year I paid $59.95 for this version of the software.

This year the software cost me $49.99,but now I have to shell out another $19.95 to e-file my state return!

That's an increase of 16.66% over last year's version by the very same name!

I am MOST disappointed in the fact that NO WHERE on the packaging does it say that e-filing for the state was not included, or that it would cost extra.

I expected more from a reputable company as H&R Block, and feel that they have stooped to both deceptive and evasive advertising practices in order to improve their bottom line by short changing repeat customers.

No matter how you cut it, I'm paying $10 more than I paid last year AND I got blind-sided by a company name I thought I knew and trusted!

SOMEWHERE on the package it should have said e-filing for state returns is no longer included and will now cost an additional $19.95.

I realize this is by no means equal in comparison to what Intuit has done to their TurboTax customers, but still, the makers of TaxCut should be held to the same standard, and therefore, they should be "called-out" for their most recent and deceptive pricing scheme!

I rated this 1-star because I was a long term customer that was both deceived and let down by a company and product I thought was above this kind of nonsense!

It made me feel like a parent reading a cereal box to see what's changed now that it says, "new and improved", when all you really find out is they cheapened the ingredients and reduced the amount you get in the box!

I started to prepare my taxes today, and I'm not thrilled with this software. The only reason I went back to Tax Cut is that Turbo Tax got ridiculous with their "charging to print" nonsense.

This software is not as simple as Turbo Tax and doesn't ask for as much detail or provide detailed schedules as much as Turbo Tax does. For example, in one place it asks you to "add together all the box x's from your 1099s" -- which is ridiculous -- TurboTax asks for every box on their input sheets and TELLS you what the total is.

I may find that I'd rather simply use Turbo Tax to prepare the returns and get the IRS disc with blank forms, and copy the data to those. Let's see if I start to like TaxCut enough to use it again next year.

The TaxCut does not properly handle Stock Options:

For example, for incentive stock options all its interview screens do is to generate a general message on ISO stock option tax treatment. It assumes that your employer included the compensation income generated by the exercise in W-2 (which might not be true). If you exercised options, got stock certificates, and then sold those the same year with loss, there is no way correct (decrease) the reported compensation income. It also does not help you to properly compute capital gain / loss from the sale.

For employee stock purchase plan it also does not perform any computation.

I hate to do it, but I will have to switch to TurboTax - last year they did computations properly. This year they raised their prices and I thought to try TaxCut, but this was a mistake. The only consolation is that both troweprice.com and scottrade.com have 35% off TurboTax cupones.